William Hague: Amidst all the debates that we will have in the coming election campaign, should we not all remember that throughout every hour of it we have 10,000 British servicemen and women in real battles in Afghanistan and that their role must be a paramount concern for whoever is elected on 6 May? Is it not true that the military advances made on the ground will be of long-term benefit only if the Afghan political processes also succeed and are seen to be legitimate? When the Prime Minister announced UK strategy for Afghanistan in November last year, he pledged that President Karzai would ensure that all 400 Afghan provinces and districts had a governor free from corruption and appointed on merit within nine months-by August this year. Is the Foreign Secretary confident that such benchmarks will still be met?

Tony Baldry: Does not the Secretary of State agree with the Foreign Affairs Committee that the current exchange rate pricing mechanism for the Foreign Office is simply unsustainable? The extra £75 million is welcome, but it is a one-off, and this is not an issue that can wait for a comprehensive spending review. Does not the Secretary of State think that he should negotiate a new bilateral deal with the Chancellor of the Exchequer?

David Miliband: I think that on reflection the hon. Gentleman, who I know follows these matters carefully, will understand that that would not be a very sensible course. Any Government after the general election will have to set a framework for public spending for all Departments, and it is quite right that the Foreign Office has negotiated a special bilateral agreement for this year. That is very important, but it is also important that we then take a long-term look at the funding of the Foreign Office and other Departments. The ability to do so on a three-year or even longer-term basis is a good thing, and that is the right way to proceed.

Andrew MacKinlay: Will the Secretary of State tell us what representations were or will be made by him to the Israeli Government in relation to the Palestinian and Arab Christians who were denied access to the holy places over Easter, the most important festival in the Christian calendar? Will he do all he can to ensure that access is given to Palestinian Arabs, who are a minority, so that they can celebrate that important feast in future?

Jeremy Hunt: I shall give way in a moment. On subsidy, we find the misguided attempt to prop up ITV regional news by tapping into the BBC licence fee. As a former US President once said, the trouble with government is that it always thinks:
	"If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidise it."
	We find the same thing in this Bill: New Labour, new taxes; new Labour, new regulation; and new Labour, new subsidies. New thinking this is not; nor is it a new economy.

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I remind the House that Mr. Speaker had imposed a time limit of 12 minutes on Back Benchers' contributions. In the past half hour or so, a number of Members have decided to withdraw from the debate. I am therefore using the powers under Standing Order No. (47(1), which allows for the variation of speaking time, so, if Back-Bench Members now wish to, they may speak for up to 15 minutes. My apologies to the Back-Bench Member who has already spoken.

Peter Luff: I agree absolutely with the hon. Gentleman, whom I wish had had the tenacity to see this Bill through to the end of the Parliament, rather than giving up halfway through. However, he is right, and I shall come back to that in a moment. Some of the fears of the internet community are misplaced. He is also right that in a responsible society, we respect other people's rights.
	I would have liked to speak on many areas, but in my brief time I shall concentrate on just four: Ofcom, file sharing, spectrum and orphan works. On Ofcom, I am personally disappointed that there is no provision in the Bill for the transfer of Postcomm's services to Ofcom. That could, and should, have been part of the Bill. The transfer is logical given the convergence of technology and the fact that postal services compete with internet and broadcast technologies. That has no relationship to the privatisation or part-privatisation of Royal Mail Group. Those changes could have been made in the Bill, giving Postcomm and Ofcom the regulatory certainty that they need to plan their futures.
	The Bill is weak on investment in broadband. My Committee produced a lengthy report, which is tagged to this debate. As I said, the Minister indicated that the Government's response was ready, but sadly he has not been able to publish it as a Command Paper yet; I wish he had. My report deals with a range of controversial issues, one of which is not covered by the Bill at all-it is in the Finance Bill-and that is the 50p monthly levy on telephones. I shall let out a small secret from my Committee's deliberations: it was the Labour members of the Committee who were particularly exercised by what they saw as a regressive and poorly targeted tax. We are to have no opportunity to debate that provision on the Floor of the House, because the Finance Bill is also going into the wash-up, which is quite extraordinary.
	I would like to see in the Bill a definition of what constitutes 2 megabits per second. I know that the hon. Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey was rather dismissive of 2 megabits per second, but for many small businesses and rural dwellers, getting reliable access to a minimum of 2 megabits per second would transform their lives. It is enough for BBC iPlayer, after all, and most commercial transactions can easily be done using that speed, but it is often not available. Putting an emphasis on the universal service obligation could really unleash the creative energies and commercial opportunities that many people are currently denied. So my message to the Government is this: let us not deride the Mini, even though we all aspire to the Rolls-Royce.
	I am worried about the provisions relating to Ofcom in clauses 1 to 3. I am not convinced that they will not dilute its focus on consumers and competition. Sky has told us in its briefing on this debate that
	"the new duties represent an unwarranted, ill defined and unnecessary intervention that is likely to distort the balance of Ofcom's priorities to the detriment of competition and consumers and result in unforeseen consequences."
	There is that phrase again: unforeseen consequences. The Bill will have so many of them, and that is why it needed a Committee stage.
	I am pleased to have had Ofcom's response to many of these proposals. It appears to welcome the investment role that it will be given under the new powers, but it has also expressed a clear concern about the lack of broader powers to achieve the greater duct access necessary for the more commercial role in next-generation access that could be achieved by the market, given the right regulatory framework.
	I turn next to file sharing. My hon. Friend the Member for Maldon and East Chelmsford, the Chairman of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, made a fine speech, and I have little to add to that, except to say that the provisions of the Bill have been misunderstood by many campaigners. They really are far less draconian than people think. A year of warning letters will precede any technical action, and such action will begin with throttling access rather than cutting it off. The cut-off will come later. There are also to be rights of appeal. I ask the campaigners to balance their interests against those of the creative industries, as the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Simon) rightly suggested.
	I am always struck by what Sky has to say, and I was certainly struck by its evidence to the Committee. It has a foot in both camps, as an internet service provider and a creative content provider. I know that it had a big internal debate about where the balance of its interests lay, and it concluded that it was with the Bill, with creativity and with protecting content. Frankly, if Sky, as a big ISP, can manage that, I am sure that everyone can. However, I note its concern that
	measures need to be widely applied which is why the notification obligations must apply to all ISPs and that in the apportionment of costs Ofcom should have regard to the principle of 'beneficiary pays', which in this case is content owners-Sky as a content owner will expect to pay the full cost of participating.
	There is still a debate to be had about the details of those provisions.
	I accept the concerns that my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon and East Chelmsford expressed about student halls of residence, although I have no idea why he should pick on students as illegal file sharers. Concerns have also been expressed by the Federation of Small Businesses, which points out that many of the problems occur
	on communal computers, such as those in internet cafés, and various other small business outlets that could include pubs, shops, hotels and even home offices-in short a significant proportion of our members.
	It is no exaggeration to say that, unless those concerns about illegal file sharing in public places are properly addressed, this could be the end of public wi-fi, which would be very serious indeed. There could be technical solutions to those concerns, but we need to have them spelled out. Unfortunately, we do not have time to do that in this debate; nor will we have time in the Bill's short Committee stage tomorrow. A full Committee stage would have enabled that issue to have the attention that it deserves.
	I am largely unsympathetic to the concerns of the big ISPs, but BT has made some important points in its representations, particularly that
	the rights holder must show the court that he has taken all reasonable steps to enforce his rights.
	That, too, is something that we should have had an opportunity to look at in detail, but that opportunity has been denied.
	I shall turn briefly to spectrum- [ Interruption. ] I hear cheers from my Front Bench. I am gaining a certain reputation for speaking up for radio microphones, so it will not surprise the Financial Secretary to the Treasury or the Minister with responsibility for Digital Britain to learn that I want to talk about that today. A massive windfall is coming the Treasury's way, and I am told that it is not included in the Red Book figures, so it is extra money to help to pay down the debt in a year as yet unspecified. There are still, however, big questions about the future of radio microphones.
	As the digital dividend rolls out, some people are losing out. They did not ask to move, and they get no benefit from moving. They include those in the programme making and special events sector, which brings huge social, economic and cultural benefits to citizens and consumers in the UK through a wide range of activities including film production, musical theatre, news gathering, television, sports events, live music and even church ceremonies. Indeed, I have the whole of the Church of England on my side in relation to early-day motion 323. It is still not too late to sign that motion, and I thank the 164 hon. Members who have already done so.
	I am confused by the Bill. The Government say that decisions must be made about spectrum allocation under the powers laid out for Ofcom by Parliament, but Ofcom has said that
	the final decision on the level and basis of this funding is entirely a matter for Government.
	There is confusion, and I wonder whether the Minister will maintain that the decision must be made under Ofcom's powers, rather than by the Government-and, if so, why.
	The Government claim that they do not need to provide funding because good notice has been given, but even now they do not know what the spectrum is going to be. In Ofcom's recent annual plan, it suggested that the details for the alternative spectrum will be provided only in the third quarter of this year, some five years after the eviction of the programme making and special events sector was announced.
	I have spoken to the Minister about the Government's pledge that no one would be better or worse off, and I will not weary him by going over the details again today. I repeat, however, that if residual value compensation does not cover the cost of replacing existing equipment with alternatives that do the same job, recipients will be left worse off. The Government have indicated that they want to take that issue seriously, and I hope that they will.
	Turning to the time scales involved, why has all this taken so long? Here we are, right at the end of the process, and we still do not have answers to the really important questions. Small businesses and freelancers need to make significant investments running into many millions of pounds, but they are being left in considerable uncertainty. There is a real risk that there could be a big hiccup in the provision of radio microphone services. When they go, we will realise how much we miss them.
	My fourth area of concern is orphan works. The rest of the Bill seems to get it right on property rights, and it is therefore surprising that clause 43 seems to get it so badly wrong. I am an amateur photographer, although I have never made a penny from any photograph that I have taken. I am Mr. May in the  House magazine calendar; I was photographed in front of Caerhays castle. I might be the election month pin-up, but I am getting no money for that photograph. I declare my interest, however.
	Many photographers rely on the exploitation of the intellectual property rights that flow from their work. As the campaign group to stop clause 43 points out, the clause says that
	if someone finds your photograph, wants to use it and decides that they can't trace you, they can do whatever they like with it after paying an arbitrary fee to a UK Government-appointed 'licensing body'. You'll never know unless you happen to find it being used in this way.
	We have seen graphic examples in our post and e-mail of images being used in ways never before seen. Those practices have resulted in the people who took the photographs losing money.
	Ironically, there has been a spectacular demonstration of that only in the last few days. I am indebted to Jeremy Nicholl, whose blog I shall quote from-or, perhaps, paraphrase; I do not want to be accused of plagiarism on this of all occasions. About last weekend's now famous Ashes to Ashes Gene Hunt poster featuring the actor Philip Glenister, the blog states:
	But for those in the UK creative industry there is a far more interesting question: how did the Labour party get permission to use the Glenister image? The answer is: they didn't. In the clause 43 spirit of log on, go everywhere, steal everything, the image was apparently downloaded by a Labour party activist, adapted by advertising company Saatchi  Saatchi, then approved by government ministers David and Ed Miliband. Alarm bells, anyone?
	The poster manages to break just about every rule in the intellectual property handbook, and with entirely predictable results. Glenister has apparently said he is unhappy about the use of his image for political purposes. Doubtless lawyers for German car maker Audi will be interested in how one of their products came to be used to promote a British political party. And BBC chiefs are reportedly 'furious' at the misuse: 'We would never have given permission for any political use of one of our programmes', one senior executive is reported as saying. Quick, define irony.

Peter Luff: Ah, that is a very interesting point. I was with the hon. Gentleman for quite a lot of that intervention, although, as a Select Committee Chairman, I try to be neutral and impartial on these matters. I thought that the reference to the Audi was a reference to my party, rather than to his. His last comment really worried me, however. I am not proud that our two great political parties are exploiting intellectual property inappropriately and without permission. I am ashamed of that, and he should be ashamed of it, too. He should not give any succour to those who abuse intellectual property. We should not forget that the BBC, as this blog says, is one of the main proponents of a Bill to allow use of other people's images in ways they did not envisage without permission or payment, yet it is furious that without permission or payment someone has taken a BBC image and used it in a way that the BBC did not envisage.
	What is interesting is that this guy has done some research. He says that
	-
	a quick search of the internet reveals the original photograph hosted here-
	he has the hyperlink on his blog-
	complete with all the BBC copyright information: it even very helpfully has a contact number for those who wish to use the picture legally.
	It concludes:
	For any other purpose whatsoever, including advertising and commercial prior written approval from the copyright holder will be required.
	It ends with reference to Caption writer: Greg King and provides the telephone number 0208 225 8543. Anyone up for this, gentlemen or ladies, can get retrospective permission and pay a fee to the provider of the photograph.

Tom Watson: It is of great personal amusement to me that I happen to be following the previous two speakers. My very good friend the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) made an impassioned plea for his trade, and I understand his arguments even though they were slightly angry and vexatious at times. You might not know this Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I am something of a rock hero myself, having been a guest lead singer with the hon. Gentleman's band. I sang Teenage Kicks at another Member's 50th birthday, and I know that the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire would have cleared the copyright and intellectual property licence and all that, because he would not have let me perform live unless he had.
	May I also spend some time thanking my very good friend, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Simon), for his contribution and for his friendship over the years that he has been in this House? He has made a huge difference and has cheered us all up. I have had a few drinks with him in bars similar to those in Star Wars, and I forgive him, because I think he has just referred to me as the estranged child of Peter Mandelson. If that is the case, he has used his uncanny political antennae to be, once again, ahead of the game. We shall miss you, Siôn.
	This week marks the tercentenary of the Statute of Anne, 1710, which was the world's first copyright law. It opens with the words:
	Whereas Printers, Booksellers, and other Persons have of late frequently taken the Liberty of Printing, Reprinting, and Publishing...without the Consent of the Authors or Proprietors of such Books and Writings, to their very great Detriment, and too often to the Ruin of them and their families: for Preventing therefore such Practices for the future, and for the Encouragement of Learned Men to Compose and Write useful Books.
	So the whole copyright settlement-I cannot be the only one to see the irony of this-came about because the British publishing industry was exploiting our creators and not giving them adequate remuneration for their work. Some 300 years on, a central question for any Government to ask themselves is how they can encourage more people to express themselves by using their creative talents to strengthen our society. Another central question for modern Governments to ask is how they will contend with the disruptive force of the internet. That is a question that we should be answering when we are framing legislation in this House.
	I do not believe that this discussion will end today. It will dominate debates in this House for years to come. The next generation of MPs will have to contend with the direct implications that our regulatory moves in the internet sphere will have for the kind of society that we want to live in, and how they will impact on the rights that we all expect to have. How do we promote freedom of speech and balance it against rights to privacy? How do we contend with issues of centralised data gathering and storage by Governments versus rights of control over our own personal information? How do we balance the right to protect intellectual property that the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire has talked about against rights of fair use? How do we balance people's right to express their views freely against the need to protect individuals from obscene forms of cyberbullying, for example?
	There is an emerging recognition that we need to break down the digital divide in this country, so that there is a right to access the world wide web through universal broadband access. Politicians on both sides of the House have talked about access to the internet as an emerging right. That is why, at the higher end of the debate, people are extremely concerned that on one level we are talking about access to the internet being a right and that, on another, we are talking about practical measures such as removing people's access to knowledge-albeit after sending a letter-and removing the ability to share knowledge using the internet.
	It is a very great pity that the Bill cannot be tested in Committee in the light of some of those questions. As a twice ex-Whip, I am rather embarrassed by the fact that the Bill is being railroaded through in the wash-up. Frankly, there has been a squalid deal between the three Front Benches, and they should be ashamed of themselves. The people who care about this Bill-and there are many out there-will see that for what it is.
	Before I concentrate on the parts of the Bill that particularly concern me, I want to list the commendable elements that deserve very great praise. First, the proposal on video games classification is long overdue and will give clarity to many families around the country about what content of video games is appropriate for their children to consume. The video games industry in this country has a very big future. It currently employs something like 28,000 people, but with the right Government intervention, there is no reason why we could not have quadruple or quintuple that number of people working in the industry in years to come.
	Britain dominates the world when it comes to creativity, and any measure that will help consumers to accept that is to be welcomed. If the PEGI-pan-European game information-classification system is adopted, I know that the industry will engage in a public education campaign, and we should commend it for that.
	The proposed new remit for Channel 4 to produce high-quality digital content is also a good idea, although, like my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Derek Wyatt), I would have liked it to go further. Channel 4 is this country's digital pioneer: it does amazing things on very small budgets, and I had hoped that the regulatory regime offered in the Bill could have harnessed its creative endeavours a little more. We have talked already about the new powers for Ofcom to regulate the electromagnetic spectrum, and I am especially pleased that the Bill will extend public lending right to e-books and spoken-word books.
	There are some very good measures in the Bill and, unlike some other contributors, I believe that the Government have much to be proud of in the digital space. Just last week, in an inspired move, we made 1:10,000 geo-spatial mapping date free for reuse through the Ordnance Survey. Ordnance Survey geo-spatial data is the jewel in the crown for data mashers up and down the country, and the move will foster a great sense of innovation and an explosion of creativity in the digital space. Freeing up data, liberating talent and catalysing creativity: these are the elements that we should be exploring in the Bill.
	Earlier, I said that this debate was not new. We have been contending with ways to manage our collective intellectual capital since the Sumerian merchants of 5,000 BC made small marks on clay tablets to show their daily trades. The difference today, of course, is the sheer scale of the task.
	How do we contend with what Richard Saul Wurman describes as a tsunami of data? Human beings produce five exabytes of recorded information in a year; that is 40,000 times the number of words stored in the British Library.
	Kryder's law is the almost mystical formula that says that digital capacity will double every 13 months. It means that we can now super-process acres of data that could not be digested even 10 years ago. If the law remains accurate, we will be able to store all the content ever created in history on a single iPod by 2025. Given the level of technological advance and the pace of change, is it any wonder that many people believe that the current measures for policing file sharing are simply pointless?
	Cheaper computing has created an industry and new thinking on information technology. In his book We-think, Charles Leadbeater makes the point that
	thanks to rising educational attainment, spreading communications and cheaper technology, innovation and creativity are becoming increasingly distributed.
	I think that the measures in this Bill will make it harder, not easier, for people to share knowledge and ideas through the internet and I am, frankly, baffled as to why any political party, on left or right, would want to go down that route.
	I know that the worthy intention of those on all three Front Benches is to defend our creative industries. Everyone in this Chamber wants to do that, even though my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington has comically parodied my position, to the amusement of all. However, more enlightened members of both main parties privately tell me that they know that the copyright measures in this Bill are nonsensical. They say that they will give the big publishing interests that dominate the debate in this country a period of respite, during which they can compose themselves while they consider their next moves in the internet age.
	I admire the Bill's motives in respect of copyright, but there is an opportunity cost associated with defending old publishing interests. Innovations will not stop in our competitor countries while we give the UK record industry time to think.
	There is a less charitable, more sinister view of this Bill. I readily admit that it might play into the conspiracy theories so ably portrayed by the previous two speakers, but the attempts to create artificial scarcity with information goods represent a second enclosure movement in this country. The intangible assets of our society are being packaged up in a contemporary expansion of intellectual property.
	As the Bill's supporters and critics make claim and counterclaim about the economic benefits of the measures contained in it, one thing has been abundantly clear to me throughout the debate. It is that there has been a huge and unprecedented lobbying operation by the old publishing interests. They are the beneficiaries of enclosure, and they have dominated the argument for months.